"A Pox on Tu Ðuc: the Social
and Political Effects of Smallpox on the House of Nguyen"

C. Michele Thompson,Department of History, Southern Connecticut
State University

One can summarize the effects of smallpox on the House of Nguyen
quite briefly. If smallpox had not killed Crown Prince Nguyen
Phúc Canh (1780-1801) then Emperor Minh Mang (1791-1841)
would not have inherited the throne. If Minh Mang had not inherited
then of course his son Nguyen Phúc Miên Tông
(1807-1847) would not have inherited and ruled as Emperor Thieu
Tri and Tu Ðuc, the last fully
independent emperor of Vietnam, could never have become Emperor.
When the future emperor Tu Ðuc
was born, 1829, smallpox had been affecting the health of members
of the Nguyen Royal family, and also their political fortunes, since
at least the death of Prince Canh although Minh Mang had taken steps
to ensure that his children would be spared smallpox by sending
a mission to Macau, 1820-21, to bring vaccination to the capitol
at Hue. This mission was successful and the Royal Medical Service
succeeded in propagating vaccine and vaccinating the royal children
until at least July 1821. Tu Ðuc's
father was eighteen when this mission returned and he may have been
among the first of the royal children to have been vaccinated. However,
by the time Tu Ðuc was born the
royal children were no longer being vaccinated and he had and survived
a case of smallpox when he was an adolescent. The most obvious effect
of smallpox on Tu Ðuc and his
reign is that his lack of children has long been attributed to this
case of smallpox. Tu Ðuc's inability
to sire a male heir added to the instability of the country as the
unclear line of succession caused infighting within the royal family
and the court and eventually led Tu Ðuc
to adopt three of his nephews as his sons, which contributed to
the years of upheaval which followed his death. By combining what
we know about the history of smallpox from the time of the Nguyen
struggle to establish the dynasty until Tu
Ðuc's death we can find information on other aspects
of Nguyen ruled Vietnam. This essay will present information on
the demographics of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century
Vietnam, on medical care in Vietnam at that time, and on daily practices
of the royal household as embedded in the history of smallpox in
the region. This essay will then examine the profound political
effects of smallpox on the Nguyen Dynasty concentrating on the life
and reign of Tu Ðuc the fourth
emperor of the Ngue?n and the last independent emperor of Vietnam.

C. Michele Thompson received a Ph.D. in Southeast Asian History
from the University of Washington. She is currently an Associate
Professor of History at Southern Connecticut State University. She
is the author of several articles on Vietnamese Traditional Medicine
and on French Colonial Science and Medicine in Indochina including:
"Scripts and Medical Scripture in Vietnam: Nôm and Classical
Chinese in the Historic Transmission of Medical Knowledge in Pre-Twentieth
Century Vietnam." Thoi Daii Moi no. 5 (July 2005)
http://www.thoidai.org; "French Colonial Medicine and Pharmacology
in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, 1802-1954" in Benedikt Stuchtey
ed., Science Across the European Empires, 1800-1950. Studies
of the German Historical Institute London. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2005; "Medicine, Nationalism, and Revolution in Vietnam:
the Roots of a Medical Collaboration to 1945." In EASTM:
East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (21) Summer, 2004;
"Mission to Macau: Smallpox, Vaccinia, and the Nguyen Dynasty."
in Portuguese Studies Review 9:1&2 Special Issue The
Evolution of Portuguese Asia, 1498-1998 2001; Scripts,
Signs, and Swords : the Viet Peoples and the Origins of Nôm
Sino-Platonic Papers no.104. University of Pennsylvania, Dept.
of Oriental Studies, March 2000.